Sadism and the Mask
by Martial Arts Master
Summary: Swen Retroper (a made-up reporter) tries to look into the reasons why the Pokemon 4Ever movie's twisted fiend the Iron-Masked Marauder was after poor Celebi. Please review!


Sadism and the Mask  
  
by Martial Arts Master  
  
Pokemon and all related characters copyrighted by Nintendo, Game Freak, Creature Inc., Satoshi Tajiri, TV Tokyo, and Wizards of the Coast. This is based off the recently released (in some theaters) Pokemon 4Ever: The Voice of the Forest. This is a fic based on the Iron-Masked Marauder, the villain of the movie, and explains why he might have used some of the methods he did. Be warned: in this fic he's going to be one _disturbed_ individual. You have been warned. So let's start the story!  
  
***  
  
  
  
It was a bright and sunny day, and a reporter from the Pokemon Daily Gazette was about to do a decidedly cloudy job.  
  
His name was Swen Retroper, and he'd been assigned to do an interview with one of the Pokemon world's worst criminals.  
  
As Swen stood outside the jail of the city he was in, he paused to reflect his assignment.  
  
Team Rocket was a worldwide criminal organization, but one member in particular stood out.  
  
That member was known only as the Iron-Masked Marauder. He'd been known for his vicious tactics, and very recently, he had somehow brainwashed the legendary Celebi, causing it to wreak havoc on a forest.  
  
Swen had also been told that the Iron-Masked Marauder had been planning to use Celebi to take over the world, wresting even the boss of Team Rocket from power, but that four brave heroes: Ash, Misty, Brock, and Sammy, had somehow helped Celebi to overcome the brainwashing _without_ destroying the brainwashing device, causing the brainwashing device to self-destruct.  
  
Swen Retroper had wanted to know where his bosses got their information from. Swen guessed that something like this would've been kept secret. In answer, their bosses had replied, "We have our ways. Don't ask questions, it's better that way."  
  
Now, Swen sighed, and went into the jail, his assignment being to _interview_ the Iron-Masked Marauder...  
  
  
  
Inside the jail, Swen was stopped by a security guard, of course.  
  
"Whaddya want?" the security guard, a female, asked.  
  
"I'm Swen Retroper, here for the---" Swen began, but the female security guard interrupted him.  
  
"Oh yeah, you're the guy who said he was going to come here to interview our resident Team Rocket member," she said. "You can go on in, it's visiting hours. But I don't want you actually entering his cell. He's a dangerous man. A chair's been provided, and for interview purposes we've given him back his mask temporarily."  
  
Swen could barely let this information sink in before the security guard led him to the Iron-Masked Marauder's cell. As Swen sat down in the chair outside the cell that had indeed been provided, he could immediately tell that the Iron-Masked Marauder had been aptly named. The mask certainly fit.  
  
"You must be that stupid reporter, Sven Retroact or something," the Iron-Masked Marauder said rudely.  
  
"The name is Swen Retroper," Swen replied evenly. "Yes, I'm the 'stupid reporter', and I'm here to do my interview."  
  
"You might as well; it's _boring_ in here," the Iron-Masked Marauder said. "Confidentially, how can you be sure I'm not gonna lie to you?"  
  
In answer, Swen merely released a Kadabra out of a Poke Ball.  
  
"Point taken," the Iron-Masked Marauder sighed. Kadabras could read minds. He continued, "Okay, where do ya wanna start?"  
  
"I'd like to begin with your origin," Swen said pleasantly.  
  
The Iron-Masked Marauder cleared his throat.  
  
  
  
"I was born in humble beginnings," the Iron-Masked Marauder began.  
  
Swen rolled his eyes. He'd heard that sort of thing lots of times.  
  
"And I led a somewhat ordinary life," the Iron-Masked Marauder. "But I began to take a sudden interest in other living beings' pain."  
  
Swen instantly became more alert. He had definitely _not_ heard that sort of thing lots of times.  
  
"Could you repeat that, sir?" he asked, not sure he heard correctly.  
  
"Well, I started taking pleasure in other living beings' pain," the Iron-Masked Marauder replied with a wistful glint in his eyes. "It started small, of course. I pulled the wings off of Butterfrees...had a mighty struggle to hold 'em still, them being so big...set all sorts of Bug Pokemon on fire, clubbed a baby Seel or two, went on a shooting rampage with dozens of Stantler, all when I was six, of course..."  
  
Swen now had a revolted grimace on his face.  
  
"When you were six, sir?" he asked.  
  
"Yep!" the Iron-Masked Marauder said proudly. "I know how that sounds, but you don't know how _delicious_ it feels to hear the screams of agony...you don't know how gratifying it is to have the sheer _power_ to control someone else's well-being, and choose to inflict your wrath upon them like some religious deity gone mad..."  
  
Now Swen's Kadabra was beginning to get a revolted grimace on its face as well.  
  
"I didn't start experimenting on people for a while..." the Iron-Masked Marauder continued. "There were too many experiments on Pokemon left to do. Charmanders to throw in the water, Lickitung tongues to nail to the walls...this was all when I was six, and still uninformed of the more subtle methods of torture."  
  
"Didn't you have any other outlets of, uh, _creativity_ to use?" Swen Retroper asked in an effort to get the Iron-Masked Marauder to change the currently twisted subject.  
  
"Oh yeah, I almost forgot," the Iron-Masked Marauder laughed. "I watched all those boring superhero shows and realized that the villains always used the same tired old plans. So when I was ten, I submitted my ideas for villain plans to the stations. To my surprise, they accepted them! I got paid hundreds of dollars in royalties because my plans were so creative."  
  
"Did that start your journey into Team Rocket?" Swen asked.  
  
"Nah, that came later," the Iron-Masked Marauder replied dismissively, waving a hand. "First, I moved my experiments onto human beings when I was eleven. I started bullying other kids. Don't believe what they tell you about how bullying is wrong; bullying gave me a real sense of power that one just doesn't get often enough in this goody-two-shoes world."  
  
Swen felt a twinge at resentment at that "goody-two-shoes world" comment. His kids were Pokemon trainers, and they couldn't have had happier lives.  
  
But as a reporter, he had to remain objective.  
  
He asked, "Anything else besides bullying?"  
  
"Oh yeah, when I was thirteen I started doing all the same things to humans I'd done to Pokemon before," the Iron-Masked Marauder replied. "You really should try it. Inflicting pain on others can be _so_ rewarding, mentally speaking..."  
  
Swen had one burning question.  
  
"Weren't you ever _discovered_?!" he asked loudly.  
  
"Nope, I was too clever for that in my youth, but these stupid police officers found out after an investigation after that whole Celebi incident," the Iron-Masked Marauder said bitterly.  
  
"Speaking of the Celebi incident, what led to your position in Team Rocket?" Swen Retroper asked as Kadabra had a satisfied smug on its face.  
  
"Well, it all started when I developed the idea of a Dark Ball," the Iron-Masked Marauder replied. "I had studied Poke Ball blueprints and was working on ways to make them torturous. Then my intensely creative mind hit upon a brilliant idea: instead of physical pain, what about mental pain? My idea could make Poke Balls control the minds of Pokemon. It would be brilliant! I could get to enjoy the sheer _pleasure_ of seeing a Pokemon lose control of itself completely...seeing the eyes go from full of life to lifeless...seeing the innocence and sweetness ripped out of them..."  
  
Now this was getting revolting again, and Swen had to physically prevent Kadabra from using Psychic and throwing the Iron-Masked Marauder against the wall.  
  
"So this got you into Team Rocket?" Swen asked.  
  
"Yes, as a matter of fact, it did!" the Iron-Masked Marauder declared. "Silph Company, the maker of Poke Balls, rejected my ideas as being too inhumane. But the boss of Team Rocket saw how brilliant mind-controlling Dark Balls were and not only accepted me into Team Rocket, but even gave me an extremely high rank right off the bat!"  
  
As he said this he sounded like he was re-living extremely good times.  
  
Swen asked, "So where did you get your Pokemon from? My bosses said you had a Scizor and a Sneasel."  
  
"I could've gotten a starting Pokemon officially, but the boss liked my ideas so much that he got me a Scizor from money from his own pocket," the Iron-Masked Marauder bragged.  
  
"And the Sneasel?" Swen replied.  
  
"Oh, that's because I used Scizor to lure some lady's Sneasel away so I could capture it with a Dark Ball," the Iron-Masked Marauder said, shrugging as if it was of no consequence.  
  
Swen felt a momentary twinge of distress. His wife, a sculptor, had once owned a Sneasel. But Sneasel had heard something and walked away, never coming back. But no, this couldn't be...  
  
Swen asked, "So why did you go after Celebi?"  
  
"That was partly because I was sick of being the boss's subordinate," the Iron-Masked Marauder replied. "I wanted to be the _ruler of the world_! That way I could enjoy others' pain without having to constantly watch over my shoulder for some goody-two-shoes Officer Jenny. Celebi had amazing powers, and it could easily help me rule the world."  
  
The Iron-Masked marauder got another wistful glint in his eyes, and he slumped against the wall of his cell as he continued, "But there was another reason. Celebi was a sweet, innocent Pokemon. I thought of how pleasureable it would be to rob it of that innocence...to take its sweetness and rip it right out of its eyes...it would be a mental torture so deliciously fun it should be illegal."  
  
"Pokemon torture _is_ illegal, sir," Swen replied, disgusted by the fact that the Iron-Masked Marauder felt that way about niceness.  
  
"Shut up!" the Iron-Masked Marauder snapped. "You wanna do an interview, you listen to me. So anyway, I chased after it with my spider robot, a.k.a spider mech, and eventually captured it with a Dark Ball. It was _so_ worth it, looking at its blank, lifeless eyes as it obeyed my every whim..."  
  
Swen Retroper could not help but notice how often the Iron-Masked Marauder got off track with how he felt about inflicting any kind of pain on others. It was really disturbing.  
  
The Iron-Masked Marauder's face grew hard, angry, and cold as he continued, "But then those interfering kids showed up and ruined everything! Even after I used a recently-brainwashed Tyranitar to try to stop them, they still managed to convince Celebi to throw off the brainwasing! The Dark Ball I used to brainwash it in the first place exploded! I was stunned. I had thought my idea of Dark Balls were foolproof."  
  
Kadabra gave another satisfied smirk.  
  
"And now you're here..." Swen finished.  
  
"Right," the Iron-Masked Marauder agreed. "Now I'm here, after a bunch of Bug Pokemon tied me up with webs. They wore off, but too late for me to escape. And what's worse, I didn't even get my Scizor, Sneasel, and Tyranitar back!"  
  
"That's because we have them now," the female security guard's voice interrupted coldly.  
  
Swen, his Kadabra, and the Iron-Masked Marauder quickly spun around. The security guard was holding the Poke Ball containing Scizor and the Dark Balls containing Sneasel and Tyranitar.  
  
"Police officers just brought these in," the security guard continued. "We found these balls, but then had to search for Tyranitar to recall it. It was worth it. Watch."  
  
As the Iron-Masked Marauder watched in horror, first, the security guard released the Iron-Masked Marauder's Scizor into a cage beside his cell.  
  
"Scizor does belong to you, but since it participated willingly in crime, and because it could otherwise help you escape from your cell, I'm placing it in this damage-proof cage," the security guard.  
  
Then, the security guard released Sneasel and Tyranitar from their Dark Balls, and then threw the Dark Balls to the ground, stepping on them..._destroying_ them.  
  
Tyranitar and Sneasel immediately lost their evil looks.  
  
To Swen's surprise, Sneasel immediately turned around and hugged Swen. Obviously this was the same Sneasel his wife lost so long ago. The sound it followed that day must have been Scizor.  
  
"You female dog! You ruined my hard work!" the Iron-Masked Marauder shouted, half a scream and half a moan.  
  
"Hard work?!" the security guard shouted back as Tyranitar left the jail, heading back to whatever master it had before the Iron-Masked Marauder showed up. "Your hard work is merely taking advantage of other people! Your hard work means only pain to others...and you actually take _pleasure_ in inflicting pain! You're a sadist, and your hard work is selfish! I'm _glad_ you lost the trial, you sicko!"  
  
As the security guard and the Iron-Masked Marauder proceeded to get into a shouting match, the Iron-Masked Marauder and his Scizor still safely in their cells, Swen ran like heck out of there with his Kadabra and his wife's Sneasel. He had his information anyway.  
  
  
  
The End  
  
  
  
E-mail all questions and comments to bleifer@comcast.net 


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